Homeless

Chapter Two

Sunita asks why Socrates is acting like this. Maggie explains that he knows other cats visit the clinic, but this yard is his alone. The black cat steps closer, arching her back to look bigger, but Socrates puffs up, too, and hisses again.

Maggie frowns. This isn’t good. In a flash, the two cats attack each other, and Socrates chases the female behind the azalea bushes, branches shaking as they growl, hiss, and howl in pain.

Maggie runs for the hose. The cats bolt out of the bushes, still fighting, until they separate and stare each other down. Socrates has blood on his cheek and a gash on his hind leg, and the female won’t put weight on her front paw and has a bite on her shoulder. He prepares to pounce again.

Maggie sprays them both with the hose, and the cats take off down the street like they were shot from a cannon. Sunita, Maggie, Brenna, and David chase after them, while Zoe stays behind to tell Dr. Mac what happened.

The kids run down the block, around a corner, and through two alleys before reaching a gas station. A man says the cats ran across the street, toward an old, abandoned button factory.

Maggie reasons Socrates probably went home another way, but Sunita is sure he’s here and wants to check behind the building, where a loading area is overgrown with trees, bushes, and weeds.

It’s slow going through the heavy vines and branches. Sunita trips over rusted machinery. David spots a slim black tail slipping through the green ahead: the tuxedo cat. They push through faster.

They come across a weathered, broken-down red boxcar on rusted wheels. Beyond it, broken concrete stretches to the railroad tracks, and the clearing is covered with cats.

The kids crouch in the weeds. There must be thirty cats, chasing each other, sunbathing, sleeping, scratching at fleas, and tiptoeing around broken glass. A few look sleek, but most are thin, flea-bitten, and in need of a brushing. There’s no sign of Socrates.

Maggie says it’s a colony of stray cats. Sunita steps out of the weeds, and most ignore her, but two with black-and-white patches come up, clearly hungry. She scratches under their chins. Brenna guesses they don’t have owners, and Sunita wishes she could take them all home.

A horn sounds, and the train to Philadelphia whizzes toward them. The cats dash into the weeds, and it’s too loud to hear Brenna gesturing frantically. Leaves and dust swirl until the last car whooshes by and it’s quiet again.

Brenna says someone is coming. Across the tracks, a boy with a green backpack crosses a yard toward them, followed by a little girl carrying a bowl of water, about third grade and kindergarten age.

As the little kids cross into the clearing, the cats reappear like magic, meowing loudly. They’re clearly regulars, and Sunita startles them by calling out a hello.